Hollywood’s Stereotype of the Japanese American
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his fellow 36th Infantry soldiers, Sgt. Culley (Dan Haggerty), who loudly calls
them ‘"Japs” in a bar. He gives his buddy the same lecture he received when he first
arrived at Camp Shelby about using the correct terminology: they are not ‘‘Japs,”
but “Japanese Americans.”
The film’s climax depicts the famous rescue in 1944 of the First Battalion
of the 36th Infantry, called the “Lost Battalion” after it had been cut off by the
Gennans in the Vosges mountains in France; Grayson is among the trapped soldiers.
Eventually, the very soldiers he did not want to train or lead rescue him and Culley.
Upon encountering the 442nd soldiers, Culley exclaims: “Man, I thought I’d never
be so happy to see a bunch of Japs!” Then, realizing his faux pas, corrects himself:
“Pardon me, Japanese. 1 mean, ‘Neesee.’” He then tells Sam about the fistfight he
had with Grayson over the word “Japs.”
With the “Lost Battalion” rescued, the film shows the 442nd soldiers
“coming home” to New York Harbor. The film’s last scenes include actual footage
of a military ceremony, with President Truman attaching a Presidential Unit Citation
onto the 442nd’s colors (Crost 306). A voiceover narrative of his speech accompanies
the video. The U.S. flag waves in a close-up, with the faces of the Nisei soldiers
superimposed over it.
Reaction to Go For Broke!
“I can still remember my exhilaration, as a teenager in the
1950s, o f seeing 'Go fo r Broke’at the Waikiki Theater Even
with Van Johnson as the lead, these were 'my people’portrayed
as heroes and fools, idealists and cynics, the fiery and docile,
the eloquent and inarticulate. ”
Franklin Odo, Ph.D., Director of Ethnic
Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa
(Chang 11)
Apart from anecdotal accounts and only brief notations in books about
World War 11 films, little research about the film itself exists. It did receive media
attention after its premiere in late spring of 1951, with reviews in the popular
press. Overall, critics gave positive reviews of the film (Alpert, Crowther,
McCarten), and pointed to its themes of tolerance toward minorities, especially
the Nisei soldiers’ meritorious achievements on the battlefield even while their
families back home faced discrimination and incarceration in the internment camps:
“Beside being entertaining, the picture should be enlightening to those Americans
who tolerated the wartime program of tossing non-combatant Nisei into prison
camps euphemistically known as relocation centers,” wrote John McCarten in The
New Yorker (93).